Words
by Hinotorihime
Summary: To know the name is to know the thing. [A series of drabbles about the meanings of the Nations' names. Various pairings. Part Six— Ukraine/Irina, "Peace".]
1. Tolys— Far Away

**_Tolys_ : technically a diminutive for several other names that begin with the element _tol-_ (which means "far" or "distant") - for example Tolmintas, Tolvydas, or Tolvaišas, all of which are pretty rare themselves; Tolys as a name in its own right is even rarer.**

* * *

Caring is easy. Too easy, for him, and though he has never been quick to trust _caring_ has gotten him into so much trouble over his long life that he almost hates himself for succumbing to it.

Better by far to stay distant. It's harder to be hurt that way.

He is always very careful not to let himself become bitter. His grudges burn low but hot, like a hearth fire, the coals nurtured under the ashes of remembrance. But the truth is that of all of them he fell first, he fell hard, and it's left its mark. Warped his psyche irreparably.

A hand outstretched, a carefree smile, and taking it catapulted him toward an insignificance he thought he couldn't bring himself to resent. Nights that seemed colder even with another body next to him, as he tried to tell himself that he didn't mind fighting for every inch of cover. It was just his husband's way—

Then the same carefree smile is plastered onto a bloodied face, and he realizes what _betrayal_ really means.

If he hadn't cared, would it still have hurt so much?

Another hand extended, gripping his sleeve and pulling him along not unkindly—gentle violet eyes, begging to be let in. And the promise of _feeling better_ is so tempting, winter air so refreshing after Poland's scorching warmth, that he doesn't realize that he is a prisoner in more than name. Snow is not sunlight but it can still envelop him; strangle him, devour him, infect his bones; Ivan breaks him to pieces, smiling innocently all the while, and (I don't want to be loved anymore, _take this poisoned cup from me_ ) carelessly puts him back together so that he can still feel the cracks rubbing sharp against all his edges.

By Alfred, he's learned his lesson. _Call me Al!_ the boy (he really is just a boy) protests, and Lithuania smiles a little sadly and says _Mr America_ until the day he has to leave.

(And meanwhile he can feel the hole in his chest, the emptiness where the rhythm of the streets of Vilnius (not Wilno, not Vilna, _Vilnius_ ) is no longer present, and he wants to laugh until he's sick, at the thought that now he is as heartless as he always ought to have been.)

It's an endless cycle of dependency, he realizes at one point, standing on the train platform (1940, and the air in Europe smells like death), waiting for Russia to come sign him out like any other piece of baggage. A possession, tossed from hand to hand, _wanted_. He is fun to play with—didn't Teutonic Knights say that once, in the glorious past that might as well belong to someone else for all the comfort it brings him?

Russia's sickly-sweet smile hasn't changed ( _does it ever change?_ ). A slight curve to pale lips—Lithuania pulls back, and sees the hurt that smile fails to hide, and for once, he cannot feel sorry. Back, and back, and back, and he is careful not to let himself become bitter. But caring doesn't work anymore. —maybe it never did.

Her hand is black-gloved, and she keeps it by her side. That's the first thing he sees. She refuses to hold her hand out, refuses to smile at him, refuses to do anything that might suggest she has any interest in him at all.

He didn't remember ever actually noticing her, back then; she was just _one of the children_ , hardly the most important member of their family. (But then, his life had revolved around Poland all of those centuries, hadn't it?) Now, she is a woman grown, beautiful and elegant, ever so slightly wild like the wolves that had once been so dear to him, and completely, utterly, obsessed with Russia ( _just like he used to be_ ) and it was such a freeing feeling. A _safe_ feeling. To know that there was no risk of his love being returned. Natalya shouts at him and stands him up on dates and he doesn't have to work at all to stop her from laying claim to him.

(He is so, so _tired_.)

Caring is easy. Trusting, by now, is almost impossible. So Tolys keeps his careful distance, and if he feels pangs of loneliness sometimes, well, it's better than losing his freedom again.


	2. Raivis— Advisor

**_Raivis:_ a variant of _Raymond_ , which in its old Germanic form of _Raginmund_ came from two words that mean "protector" and "counsel".**

* * *

What he really wants, more than anything, is to be the kind of person people listen to. He watches Lithuania fast-talk concessions out of Russia, watches what seems like the entire world go to Hungary for advice. Watches Estonia, dispensing his clever eloquence, and America, pulling people into his youthful enthusiasm. Watches Ukraine comfort a sobbing Moldova, watches Russia cheerfully intimidate his way through life, and thinks _How can it be this hard_?

He watches, and he learns. Belarus really believes the New Years' divinations, Poland's constant carefree smile changes subtly as the day wears on, East Germany is gentle with animals despite his loud nature. And Latvia thinks that he would like to be the kind of person they would listen to; the kind of person who could explain away the doused candle that makes Natalya go pale and silent, who could tell people that Feliks is obviously tired even though he's too stubborn to admit it, who could think of a tactful way to ask Gilbert for help taking care of the nest that was blown to the ground in the night.

But he opens his mouth, and the words that come out are wrong. He can't formulate advice, or ideas, or comfort. All he has are opinions.

The Soviet Union is not a very good place to have opinions.

It seems like every time Latvia says something, his own tongue rebels and twists his meaning into whatever will get him into the most trouble. Or worse, it moves without his consent, or even his knowledge sometimes – then all of a sudden he is frantically backpedaling, and then the shaking starts and he _hates_ the shaking but he can't seem to stop it when Russia is bearing down on him with that awful smile asking him to repeat whatever he'd just said.

He wonders fancifully if the words really hate him that much, if maybe it's because he locks them up in story after story scribbled in composition books he steals from Estonia's desk. He has lists of words he loves – his own language, mostly, but also whispery Russian and singing Finnish and crisp English, words he's learned from Georgia or Romania or China. And on paper the words obey him; he can form them into something beautiful even when the world feels grey and dirty. He writes about sunlight in the cold darkness of winter; fresh bread and hot soup and gingerbread cookies when he feels the pinched bellies of his children. He sings dainas as he works. The ones he remembers from before he was Latvia. The ones his poets are making now, attempting to create their own beauty. Sometimes, he tries fitting his own lyrics to ancient tunes, and they line up perfectly in the melody, and he can sing his thoughts in a clear, young-sounding voice, and his hands are steady and the sky seems a little brighter.

But put someone in front of him and take away the music, take away the battered notebook, and he is blurting out secrets with increasing horror, cringing from the inevitable cry of _LATVIAAAAAA_ , as if it's his fault he can't seem to make the words do what he wants anymore.

Is it any wonder no one listens to him?

(Lithuania is kind but distant, and Estonia is chasing after moonbeams, and Latvia is just a mouthy little kid; it's _not fair_ for them all to be lumped together – and there's another opinion nobody cares about, and so when he tries telling people that they're not really brothers, not _really_ , even if he'd like to be, they look at the other two and repeat themselves.)

After everything goes wrong and then right and then wrong again and—well, after, he cleans up his house, years of reflexes preventing him from throwing out anything that he'd like to, and when he attends his first World Conference as an independent Nation, Iceland is there, silver-blond hair shining under the fluorescent lights. Latvia stammers out a heartfelt thank-you, and Iceland's sullen face cracks into a warm smile and a _don't mention it_ in heavily accented English. They sit next to each other and Latvia gets to feed the puffin at lunch. A round-faced young woman with a shaggy bob comes over to say hello and congratulations, and Latvia has read enough cheap romance novels to recognize the despairing blush that sweeps across Iceland's pale face.

He wants to be someone people will listen to. But mostly he wants to feel like he is someone who can make a difference somehow. And for the first time in his life he is almost grateful that everyone knows he cannot keep his mouth shut, because no one is surprised when he comments loudly on how pretty Miss Liechtenstein is and how lucky Mr Iceland must be to have a girlfriend like that—oh, I'm sorry, I didn't, I thought, I—I—

Iceland is flushing furiously and Liechtenstein seems stunned but intrigued. And the two walk into the next meeting holding hands, Switzerland following behind them as a surly chaperon, and Raivis smiles into his sheaf of notes.


	3. Natalya— Christmas Day

**_Natalya_ : from Latin _natale domini_. Definitely more of an "Eastern" Christian name, popularized by the wife of one of the Coptic saints.**

* * *

 **The dumb-cake is actually from the British Isles, but given the nature of folklore and magic, I'm sure there's a similar tradition _somewhere_ in Eastern Europe. The cake must be prepared facing backwards and in complete silence; it is set out and the young woman hides nearby. Supposedly, if she will marry that year, an apparition of her future husband will appear and eat the food laid out.**

* * *

She thinks about _names_ a lot. Latvia can sometimes be coaxed into a conversation about it, if she can catch him with his notebook open and a dreamy look on his face: words have power, of course they do, they sum up the essence of a thing, wrap ideas up into a neat package to be deposited into someone else's head. But she knows what the others think of her, so she does not ever tell Latvia of her epiphany. _Natalya_ , her name is. The birth of Christ. _Ivan_ means gift of God. And was not God's greatest gift the babe of Bethlehem? Is that not a sign that they belong together?

She makes the dumb-cake on her nameday, as she does every year.

Her earliest memories are fuzzy, partly with age, but also the result of having been so often stitched together and taken apart like the monster in England's book; her history, land, brain, are a terrifying patchwork of peoples and partitions and annexations, even more than most of the Nations she knows. Still, she remembers, or tells herself she can remember, the warmth of her brother's embrace, him in his tattered coat pulling threadbare clothes around her and fixing a pretty bow in her hair, before he was taken by the Golden Horde and she was whisked off to be a servant in Lithuania's house. (Not that he treated her badly, or any more badly than the others… and that was the problem, wasn't it? She grinds her teeth now, while he trails after her like a dog, after ignoring her all those centuries.)

—Silence in the kitchen, only the clinking of utensils as she awkwardly stirs the thin, sweet batter.

(Someday, when she is living with America—it seems at times that everyone takes their turn living with America—she will try not to think about Russia if she can help it. Not he, but his government, will have done so much damage, and the pain will be starting to seep through her and poison all the vague memories that she has been drawing comfort from through millennia of being passed around from empire to empire. Distance is nice, when hurt is fresh.

…but they're a family, aren't they? Family forgives each other, that's how it _works_ , and anyway they're Nations and they have to see each other for possibly hundreds of years more, and holding grudges over the foolishness of power-hungry bosses is just _stupid_.

It will all be very confusing.)

She lays out the banquet; the clock is speeding toward midnight. She has done this for years and she knows what the others think of her, but, but _maybe_. She ducks behind the wall and watches. tiktiktiktiktiktik, and a foot appears in the corner of her vision, and for a brief, agonizing moment, she lets herself hope.

"Miss Belarus?"

His over-long hair is loose, dark circles prominent beneath his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she says harshly. _You ruined it, you've ruined it like you always do_.

"I was worried about you," Lithuania says calmly. (Always so gentle, now, but she remembers his face when he 'rescued' her, remembers the insanity of empire that tainted even him and his maternal fussiness.) "It's very late, you know."

"I am a grown woman, and you are not in charge of me _or_ my sleeping habits." Her voice is stiff, and her knuckles are white on the back of the chair. Just go away, don't make me look at you any longer. I wanted to see Ivan's face. _Gift of God_ , yes, but we are Nations, God turns away from us so easily. I'll get no gifts from Heaven, will I?

Belatedly, she realizes that his fingers are drumming on the tabletop; she must have spoken aloud.

"That's not a bad thing," comes his quiet whisper.

"Oh? And you are one to judge, you whom the whole world desires?"

He takes a step back at the venom dripping from her words. His mouth opens. (White teeth shining, perfect and even, she just wants to _break them and turn them red and crooked, see how Ivan likes his pretty face once it's torn and disfigured_ , and any other time her own jealousy would frighten her but he ruined the divination and how dare he, how _dare_ he after everything he's done)

"That's not— you don't know what you're talking about! You—you have no idea—!"

"You stole him from me!" she bursts out, a shriek mingling with the wind outside. "Once, and again, and a thousand times, _you've_ been the one standing between us!"

His face grows ugly, his voice frigid.

"Believe me, if I could give him to you _I_ _would_. You don't deserve it, but who am I to dictate the form of your unhappiness?"

She _hates_ him.

"Out," she orders, and picks up the carving knife from the table; he raises his hands sarcastically and retreats.

The knife clatters to the floor. Natalya buries her face in her hands as Christmas dawns bright and cold.


	4. Feliks— Fortunate

**_Feliks_ : Polish spelling of the _extremely_ popular Latin name _Felix,_ meaning "happy", "lucky", or "successful".**

* * *

It's narrow and hard, yes, but in the end what he hates most is that his new bed, like everything in Austria's house, is too big and too cold.

(He keeps waking up in the middle of the night, and the covers are wrapped around him and there is no annoyed knee in his stomach, no irritated hissing to _give them back I'm freezing_ , and he lies for hours staring at the ceiling with dry eyes.)

Crying doesn't help, he tells Venezia, tiny, cheerful Feliciano who shares his name. You just smile and keep going, and that way no one will ever truly know they've beaten you. It drives them up the _wall_ , when you act like you don't care.

(He does care, but that's not, not the _point_ , it's—)

At least, he tells himself, Tolys is happy. Maybe even happi _er_ , he amends, imagining Russia's hand slide across Lithuania's thigh and a pleasant blush bloom on his hus—on his ex-husband's cheeks. He's happy, hating me, thinking I'm a traitor, and that's. That's all that matters now. That's all that should have mattered anyway, if—

(If. Well, that's a hard word, and it shouldn't have taken all of this for him to _realize_. And really the covers were always the least of their problems, weren't they?)

(But still. If if if, turn back time and do it all over: he hums to himself as he does a slapdash job on the chores he despises and tunes out the yelling.)

He rolls over in his narrow bed and pretends he can see green eyes glinting in the moonlight. You can have them all, here, he whispers. Are you warm enough, are you comfortable, _hold me, Liet_ —I should have said it ages and ages ago but I thought you knew.

When Holy Rome leaves, Venezia gives the kid a broomstick of all things, and it hurts to watch because that smile little Feli is wearing is far far too familiar, is the smile Feliks examined this morning as he practiced in the mirror, and he wonders if something given in lies—even kind lies like _I'll be waiting for you_ —can really bring luck on the scale Holy Rome is going to need. And then Feliks dares to wonder if all those flower crowns twisted under blue, sweet-smelling skies were lies as well, because Lithuania takes a long time to trust but that's different from _caring_ , somehow…

…but he tries not to think about it too much. There are more important things to do, after all.

Like organizing uprisings! That's fun, there's a breathtaking exhilaration in going behind Prissy-Pants's back, especially to screw with Russia; and there's always the chance that it'll _work_ this time, that the hacking coughs from existing in three places at once and so hardly existing at all will finally go away and he can go home and see if Prussia really made good on his threat to burn all the pretty gowns it took Poland centuries to collect. If he did Feliks will be _so pissed._

See? Pretend to be okay and you will be. Simple logic.

Venezia believes him, which is kind of weird because half the time Poland doesn't believe himself.

The smile. He can feel it cracking sometimes, despite his efforts. At least Tolys is alright, he tells himself, and throws himself into his people's unrest, and _. And what does he really want_ , because he can't be happy like this but he can sure as hell fake it until even Venezia who is Italia now cannot see behind the cocky grin. (He looks in the mirror, and it looks so _stretched_ and _fake_ how is he even fooling anyone) and he jokes about being a phoenix but the truth is that flames burn and ashes smother and wings can't carry very much weight.

He hangs the new map of Europe in his lovely new bedroom with its wide, soft bed that still feels horribly cold and empty; but it's alright, he can fix that, he _can,_ because:

the handle of a pushbroom, a crown of flowers, freely given, are useless. His arms are bloody to the elbow and now he is holding Liet's heart in his hands and he is smiling because he doesn't remember how to do anything else and maybe a love-token taken by force will be a far better good-luck charm.

Heaven knows, Feliks could use some luck.


	5. Ivan— Gift of God

**_Ivan:_ from _Iohannes_ , the Greek form of Hebrew _Yochanon_ , "God is gracious" (the same name we get _John_ from).**

* * *

it is a truth universally acknowledged that

a sunflower needs a Sun to turn to

(indubitably indisputably undeniably)

he remembers the frozen tundra and

a cold wind blowing through his bones

(poison)

( _where is the warmth i_

 _was promised?_ )

—for a while he thought

dark eyes kind eyes soft hair

( _my summery one_ he says)

could be his Sun a Sun worth turning to

( _why are you crying dearest? for yourself or for_

 _the one who did not stop me from taking you away?_ )

the gift god-promised to those who

obey

who

love

oh how he loves how he wants

to love

(when betrayal comes he tells himself it

doesn't hurt and so

it doesn't)

( _you'll be back you know_

 _but_ ) but

the warmth fades as it always does

(blood is warm.

his children's blood makes the snow steam

melting roses in the heat of his

Happy Ending)

lenin says he can give russia Sunlight

stalin khrushchev gorbachev are

gifts from heaven

(18000000 in the gulag

his family starts to slip away)

onetwothreeand

Unbreakable Union of freeborn Republics!

(dark summery eyes turn - _Unbreakable Union!-_ cold and hard - _Unbreakable_ \- and dis

- _unbreak_ -

tant)

one day ivan will learn not to trust gifts


	6. Irina— Peace

**_Eirene_ was the name of the Greek goddess of peace.**

* * *

 **For reasons of sensitivity I'm not specifying any of the historical events.**

* * *

She is not uncomfortable in her body. Large breasts and wide hips and little folds around her waist, all of those are just softnesses that a crying child can snuggle into (and heaven only knows how many crying children she has held in her lifetime, whether human or Nation). She lets them snuggle, lets them cry, and tells them there is no shame in it. She cries herself, when she feels the need to cry; her emotions are always written too loudly on her face anyway.

She knows she is weak. But she looks around at her neighbors, at Tolys whose gentleness has become something cold and hard, at Natalya who has been clinging to memories so long she has forgotten how to live in the present. She sees Feliks who is slowly cracking under the weight of his smile and Ivan who cracked under his long ago and she thinks if that is strength, perhaps she is better off without it.

The others, she is all too aware, don't see it that way. Maybe it's different for her, because she wasn't an empire, never got that heady taste of power that they all seem to be trying to recover—she is just Kyiv who has been someone's servant for as long as she can remember (perhaps in the very distant past she was large and strong— _was_ she the Kievan Rus'? her memory is full of holes)

(but it doesn't matter, really. the past is the past and should stay there.)

 _Chubby crybaby_ , Belarus called her once, in a fight that for once didn't end in blood spilled and a carefully-worded treaty - neither of them even remembers what the argument was about, and really isn't it better that way? you have to stop the past from mattering, because otherwise it will fester inside you and you won't ever let it go; they are sisters, and they are Nations, and they will fight eventually, that's just how things are, and Ukraine has learned to accept that.

(And _maybe_ that is a kind of strength, but she prefers to think of it as practicality.)

The thing about life is that it goes on, until one day it stops. Wars and famines and massacres and more famines and now she is standing at the new border with her chest and hips straining at the cloth of her combat fatigues, and she grips her little brother's hands wordlessly (and _again_ and _again_ and it's not only Russia, it's her cousins and her friends and sometimes it's her own people tearing her apart from within and she's so sick of it, so so tired and surely the others are too?) and his scarf is fluttering in a hot wind.

She doesn't expect an apology, she finally tells him.

And he replies good because he doesn't intend to give her one, and he drops her hands and walks away.

 _(and she wonders if maybe she feels it even more deeply, like a sabre through her heart, because of her own womanhood, because of the millions upon millions of mothers and sisters and wives who make her up and who know in their bones this awful sting of watching the ones they love most crumble and then turn like wounded dogs on a chain)_

Ukraine lets herself cry then. For herself, and for him as well.

Life goes on.

She adjusts, she endures, she cries for her people, who suffer so much for her mistakes. There is a vast picture of dull grey agony painted across her landscape and she _can't do this can't listen to the crying it's constantly in her head_

She escapes into the small details.

It surprised her the first time, she who by her very vast and long-lived nature sees the whole picture first and last. But when she closes her eyes and dreams her children's dreams, she sees babies gripping their mothers' fingers with all the strength in their fat, tiny hands. Schoolchildren slack on their homework and dump mud on each other. Newlyweds laugh awkwardly as they fumble with each other's clothes. Sunlight shines through windows and humans grasp at their fleeting lives with a bright and sharp ferocity.

Spring comes, and it is beautiful.

That is a kind of strength, she thinks. She lets the warmth of that thought sink deep into her bones and wraps it around herself in the bitter winter.

 _(but they may have hope but they cannot live without food)_

(She carefully does not wipe the tears from her face when she goes to beg help from anyone she can think of.)

She is not uncomfortable in herself; no one seems to understand that she doesn't need to be. She looks around at the mess her family and friends have made of things, and she adjusts. (And she opens her arms wide for her little sister, who comes stumbling into them weeping and ashamed of it, and strokes her tangled hair and tells her that weakness does not have to make her less of a woman.)

Irina's strength is not in war, but in peace, and she has learned to accept that. Maybe one day, she tells herself, there will come a time when that strength will be recognized, will be needed, but for now she pins back her bangs and does what she needs to do.


End file.
